I don't think I've ever enjoyed a close "exciting" game less than this Maaco Las Vegas Bowl. Despite being close throughout the second half, the Huskies led only once and by just one point. UW dropped a likely TD pass and missed a short field goal. They could have easily had an 8 point lead on BSU's game winning drive. The defense played well on 1st and 2nd downs but was terrible on 3rd down and worse on 4th down (although that last 4th down conversion was bullshit and Peterson couldn't hide it with his surprised grin). All due respect to BSU, but UW worked their asses off to give this one away. It was a perfect encapsulation of the 2012 Husky season.

I've never seen a QB regress like Keith Price has. Yes, his WRs are below average (especially Mickens), his line is awful in pass pro, but Bishop Sankey had 281 total yards of offense today and Keith Price still looked like crap most of this game. He took sacks Matt Flynn could have avoided, he passed up chances to tuck the ball and jog (or limp) for an easy 10 yards, he took a sack on a play he could have legally and easily throw the ball away on, he was horribly inaccurate on most of his passes, and he threw a couple of ugly blind picks. He also missed a few wide open options, one of which would have been a sure TD. For my money, I think this might have been Price's worst game yet when considering all the help he was getting from Bishop Sankey.

Last year, it was Nick Holt that was obviously holding the team back. This year, it's UW's passing offense. After the Alamo Bowl Sark took a day to think things over before firing Holt, which given their relationship was not easy to do. It's time he did the same at QB. UW has a couple of high rated WRs coming in next month, barring a school switch. UW also has a few QBs on their roster that are highly recruited and profile similarly to guys like Colin Kaepernick or Marcus Mariota. Cyler Miles and Troy Williams (if he stays committed) both have outstanding athleticism, and Jeff Lindquist is no slouch athletically either. Given Price's constant injuries and luke warm explosiveness when healthy, it's likely that he'd be the 3rd or maybe even 4th most athletic QB on UW's roster this spring. And athleticism matters, a ton, especially given the role it plays for a point guard QB and UW's tilt towards the read option in recent months.

Keith Price has some good qualities and seems like a really nice person, but I think UW has to at least open up the QB position to competition this spring and give some of those athletic QBOTF's a chance to take the job right now. I'm not even the biggest fan of Mariota compared to a certain someone, but if UW had Mariota starting over Price today it would have been a blowout win for UW. If none of them look ready or if Price improves his play, then fine. But to me, the team has to at least look and find out. Sadly, precedent shows this to be very unlikely.

Jaydon Mickens had three drops today on probably four or five targets, the perfect ending to a season in which it felt like he had more mistakes than catches. I have to hope that he's the next Golden Tate story: Golden Tate was hot garbage in the 2011 preseason before turning things around, but usually players this bad stay bad. However, he just keeps getting large numbers of reps, and I think it's a huge statement to the sorry state of our WR corps right now.

Our best WR (Williams) is really just an average WR before the catch, and he had a huge drop in this game as well. People ripped Kearse and not without good reason at times, but he's miles better than anything UW had in their WR group this season. Consider also that Keith Price had 39 pass attempts today and only two of them were caught by someone other than ASJ/Williams/Sankey. Both of those catches were by Mickens, who sucks. I really hope Stringfellow and Daniels are the real deal, because our WR corps is brutal right now.

The good:

Remember when Marshawn Lynch had that "light bulb coming on" moment in 2011 around midseason? Sankey has done the same in 2012. He went from over-rated and ineffective in his first 1.5 seasons to being a force down the stretch for UW. His 1439 rushing yards this season are just behind Chris Polk's career best 1488 last season. That's extremely impressive given his slow start to the season and all the injuries and ineffectiveness on the O-line. I think Sankey might just have a real shot at getting the UW rushing record in 2014, especially if he is paired sooner rather than later with a very athletic QB that can make the read option as deadly as it's been for Oregon or Arizona.

Bishop Sankey was the player of the game. It's not often a broadcast picks a player of the game from the losing team, but I don't think they had a choice. He was excellent today.

I was actually really impressed with UW's defense today on 1st and 2nd downs. Boise State had a couple of nice runs but most of their rush attempts were stuffed, they couldn't attack the edges, and it seemed like most of their first downs were made by the slimmest of margins all day long. I think BSU was extremely fortunate to win this game today, no disrespect intended. They deserved to win, but they got a lot of breaks and barely pulled it out, and UW's speed on defense was a big reason for that.

I think Sark did a great job preparing his team for this game. BSU had no answer for UW's rushing attack, not even after halftime. Conversely, Boise State wanted to run the ball and attack the sidelines with bubble screens, and consistently all game UW players were always in the right position to make stops. If Keith Price had played even an average game, I think they beat BSU pretty easily. I really hate to pin a loss on one guy, especially when BSU's QB played decently well and UW's defense was ridiculously unclutch, but yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it.

I'm not disagreeing with you because I'm down on Price too but this comment had me double take. Not because I disagree with you but I give you props for putting it out there. I do have to ask though, do you think Price is a product of his offensive line though?

I'm not even the biggest fan of Mariota compared to a certain someone, but if UW had Mariota starting over Price today it would have been a blowout win for UW. If none of them look ready or if Price improves his play, then fine. But to me, the team has to at least look and find out. Sadly, precedent shows this to be very unlikely.

SEC FAN wrote:I'm not disagreeing with you because I'm down on Price too but this comment had me double take. Not because I disagree with you but I give you props for putting it out there. I do have to ask though, do you think Price is a product of his offensive line though?

I'm not even the biggest fan of Mariota compared to a certain someone, but if UW had Mariota starting over Price today it would have been a blowout win for UW. If none of them look ready or if Price improves his play, then fine. But to me, the team has to at least look and find out. Sadly, precedent shows this to be very unlikely.

I think if we had Jake Locker today they would have forfeited. There were several plays today were Jake Locker could have taken off and gone 20, 30, 40 yards. Really the only edge Price has over Locker is his smarts/accuracy, and today he was about as smart/accurate as Locker was on one of his bad days.

If i'm a UW fan I want him starting next season. I'm trying to find good high school highlight video's of him and not having much luck, but from what i've heard he's in the Jake Locker mold but faster and a better thrower. Maybe thats just recruiting hype, but if he's the future might as well get it started.

I watched a little of Cyler Miles HS tape and he looked like a robotic QB with some throwing mechanics issues but has really nice athleticism. Like I said, he kind of fits in that Kaepernick/Mariota family of QBs, and given UW's tilt toward read option that could make him the front runner.

Jeff Lindquist shouldn't be overlooked. He's a complete package QB and might be the best of the three. Reminds me a lot of Stanford's Hogan, and Hogan is a very underrated QB who is a bit like a poor man's Andrew Luck.

Troy Williams looks a lot like Geno Smith (very hard to believe he's only 6'2" when watching him). Big looking QB with iffy footwork but a big arm and a guy that is a thrower first, runner second.

It's going to be a very interesting competition. I think the best coarse of action would be to start one of Miles/Lindquist now and hope to get 1-2 years of Williams after they leave for the NFL. I doubt it will happen, but it's the best move Sark can make. I hope he makes it, assuming at least one of those QBs looks ready.

Good points. Like I said I don't disagree, and I do agree with Kearly that Locker would have ran and kept drives going and possibly scored.

Its kind of funny how some "experts" were talking about how great Price was and that he was more accurate and a better QB in the Alamo Bowl but as you can see Locker would have been better equipped in a game like today in the Vegas Bowl.

And Price was actually much healthier this season than he was last year.

Hawk Strap wrote:Don't kid yourselves Locker sucked as well

Locker had a few rough games, but I never remember him even once squandering the kind of performance that Price squandered today from Bishop Sankey. Just the opposite- Locker often carried an inferior Husky team to victories.

Of course, Locker was highly flawed but that's kind of my point. Even a flawed QB like Locker could have won today. Price got the ball back with just over a minute and a timeout needing a FG to win and starting with good field position. He went 5 yard pass, 5 yard pass, 5 yard pass, interception. And that was with Boise State playing prevent defense. It was very typical for how he played on the day as a whole.

Last edited by kearly on Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

kearly wrote:UW's QBs have been getting their asses kicked for a decade now. : )

And Price was actually much healthier this season than he was last year.

I have never in my life seen a guy get hit as much in one game as he did against Stanford. Never. I would not be surprised if he has a nervous tic by the time he is done with school.

You must not have watched USC and Matt Barkley play against Stanford?

No doubt Price was getting killed early in the season. And by the end of the season he looked like a guy who was seeing ghosts and skittish in the pocket. I remember in the Oregon game specifically there were plenty of times when he had plenty of time to throw and the o'line was holding up well but still looked as if he was rushing things and scared of the pressure. Its definatly in his head. The tough thing for him as that once it gets in your head like that its damn near impossible to get it out. (See David Carr)

I appreciate the comments. Thats why I brought up the subject of his offensive line. Carr is a perfect example of a guy who got beat up and regressed. Hard to play when your put on your ass in less than 2 seconds. I think Vick would be the most recent example.

For those of you that want to see Price not be the starter next year, it sounds like the competition will be opened up from what Sark was quoted as saying in this morning's Steve Kelley column entitled Keith Price's play guarantees his future isn't guaranteed. Read it here:http://seattletimes.com/html/stevekelle ... ley23.html

kearly wrote:I think if we had Jake Locker today they would have forfeited. There were several plays today were Jake Locker could have taken off and gone 20, 30, 40 yards. Really the only edge Price has over Locker is his smarts/accuracy, and today he was about as smart/accurate as Locker was on one of his bad days.

Price missed a ton of open receivers that he didn't even look at. He plays like he is 5 foot 7. Looks like Hughie went all in on the wrong QB and bashed the future superstar (Wilson). Live by "conventional wisdom" die by "conventional wisdom"!

hawksfansinceday1 wrote:For those of you that want to see Price not be the starter next year, it sounds like the competition will be opened up from what Sark was quoted as saying in this morning's Steve Kelley column entitled Keith Price's play guarantees his future isn't guaranteed. Read it here:http://seattletimes.com/html/stevekelle ... ley23.html

Sad. The kid is so likeable but it appears he is ruined as a qb. He went from having a football future to having it disappear in one year. If he is so mentally weak that he is damaged goods he will never excell at his position. Sad.

It is sad, but deep down I'm not surprised. Something about him always struck me as mildly effeminate. Not that I think he's secretly gay (and if he was, I don't care), but he was never the "tough guy" or a "leader of men" type. I've never seen a better QB that had body language more timid than Price's. If I was some random non-fan walking down a hallway at UW and met Price, I'd be shocked to find out that he was a player for a Pac-12 college football team, much less a record setting one. Price is a gifted and natural QB, but toughness matters, and he doesn't have enough of it. And I say this as someone who never pulls the "toughness" card like a lot of fans do. I even think that QBs like Jay Cutler are tough, or at least tough enough. Keith Price is less tough than Jay Cutler is, and it's hard to see him going anywhere until that changes.

Yeah that was actually my first post I made during the long Vegas Bowl thread.

My thing with Price is that it seems like every time I watch him play he's limping around the field. As an NFL Scout, the kid has low draft stock because he'll never stay healthy in the big leagues. I know he got rolled up on but like I said it isn't about just this game. Its like every game I see him in.

He seems like a great kid. I don't know, maybe he needs to bulk up and get a more muscular base. I know he has knee issues but I was always told the best way to avoid injuries is to get stronger. Obviously some injuries are unavoidable though.

And I think Jay Cutler is pretty tough. He played behind some crap offensive lineman in a base 5 man protection with Martz and now Mike Tice and he still hangs in the pocket. I think the guy got a bad rap last year by his twitter fiasco with MJD and other guys who had no idea how much pain he was in.